In the academic world, interest in football in Latin America has been expanding quickly in the last few decades with scholars from many disciplines recognising football's impact. In 2016 the Asociación Alemana de Investigaciones sobre América Latina (German Association for Latin American Research) focused its 2018 conference on football in the region, with the book under review resulting from that meeting. The volume contains 30 short chapters from different academic disciplines.

It begins with two essays examining the beginning of the writing of the history and the sociology of football, by Thomas Fischer and Aldo Panfichi respectively. There are chapters on football and identity (both gender and national), on race, on football and political power, on the role of fans, and on the media and football. Also included are three chapters on Indigenous ball games in Mexico, which, although interesting and well done, seem out of place. From this author's perspective there are several important aspects of football that are essentially ignored. There is no direct examination of the economics of the sport, despite the obvious ways that this shapes the nature of the game. Mexico is largely absent and Central America totally so. There is little attention to the basic unit of football: clubs. As a historian I found the lack of any discussion of football history, other than its founding moments, disappointing. Still, this volume demonstrates the depth of the research that is being done.

One chapter that stands out is Fischer's interesting overview of the writing of the history of Latin American football. He observes that, until recently, what was written appeared primarily in sports magazines, and he stresses the role of some reporters who wrote about the history and the sociology of the game. He uses as an example the Brazilian Mário Filho. Fischer posits that the modern study of football in Latin America began with Eduardo Archetti's work on masculinity in Argentina (Masculinities: Football, Polo and Tango in Argentina (Berg, 1999)). The emphasis on masculinity in many of the volume's chapters underlines its continued importance. Fischer argues that the study of football was then picked up by others; especially influential were Panfichi and Pablo Alabarces. Fischer also highlights the importance of the social history written by Julio Frydenberg.

A particularly interesting chapter is Nicolás Cabrera's examination of the barra brava, the Piratas, of the football club Belgrano of Córdoba, Argentina. Cabrera, an anthropologist, embedded himself within the barra but also employed some semi-structured interviews. The barra defines itself by presenting itself at games, especially away games, in an extremely hierarchical fashion with the group's leaders playing key roles. Loyalty was defined by appearing at away games. Even after supporters of visiting teams were banned from stadiums, barra members continued to follow the team. They did this by infiltrating the stadium, posing as supporters of the home team and then posting on social media photographs of their presence with symbols of their support for Belgrano, or by the Piratas reaching agreements with barras from rival teams. The latter is particularly common.

The chapter by Arturo Córdova Ramírez is very different as it examines the role of playing football, and an Ecuadorean version of volleyball, in the life of Latin American immigrants in Bonn, Germany. A focus is on one park and the organisation of tournaments and teams that helped create a sense of community. The organisers of the tournaments also gained social capital. The events permitted some community members to gain economically by selling food at games. A parallel chapter by the anthropologists Julia Haβ and Stephanie Schütze looks at football leagues created by Andean immigrants in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Looking at such activities within Latin American immigrant communities allows scholars to see not only the creation of a recreational opportunity but also the building of new social networks. Although not mentioned in any of the chapters, the study of informal leagues and teams hints at what the founding of football clubs was probably like in the early twentieth century. The foundational stories are often wrapped in myth and the vast majority of early teams long ago disappeared. However, ordinary people frequently organised clubs, negotiated places to play and created leagues. The process is not exactly the same, but the resemblances bear thinking about.

Several chapters examine how media (including literature) helped shape the vision of the game. A fine example is the work of Nicolás Campisi, which deftly ties the fictional work of the Argentine sports commentator Borocotó (Ricardo Lorenzo Rodríguez) with the creation of the national myth about an Argentine style of play. Borocotó was a sports journalist for many years, but he also wrote fiction and movie scripts. He is considered the founder of the popular myths about the founding of Argentine football and its style, with a dependence on dribbling. Campisi argues that Borocotó's fiction shaped the idea that the criollo style of football was formed by the sons of immigrants (particularly Spaniards and Italians) who were fully Argentine on the potreros (empty lots) of Buenos Aires, and he especially saw the pibe (kid) as the key to adopting the picardía (roguish) style. Campisi points out that the great footballer Diego Maradona fits the pibe image with his manner of playing and bending of the rules (his ‘hand of God’ goal); this, plus his tremendous abilities, explains his enormous popularity, visible in the tumultuous displays after his death in late 2020.

This book demonstrates the great strides that academia has made in the study of football in Latin America. Most of the articles are good and interesting, and other readers might appreciate some chapters more than I did. It also demonstrates the weakness of a book solely based on conference papers. Several important topics are not covered in any depth. In addition, and this is a more fundamental flaw, the chapters are short. The authors do not have the space to carefully analyse the material that they present, frequently leaving the reader wanting much more. Still, this collection is an impressive array of scholarly work on a subject that is relatively new.